Retro Virus Turned Evolutionary Hero

In its never ending tales of serendipity, evolutionary theory now exalts the once lowly virus as crucial to the evolutionary process itself. It seems that those pockmarked sequences of ancient retroviruses tend to show up in important DNA binding sites where regulatory proteins perch and control which genes are expressed. As one science writer explained:

Surprisingly, the infected hosts and their primate descendants also appear to have benefited from this genetic invasion, new evidence suggests. The ancient retroviruses … helped a gene called p53 become an important “master gene regulator” in primates, …

The advent of gene regulatory networks allowed for greater control over gene expression in higher vertebrates. With tightly controlled variations in gene expression, species that had very similar genetic codes—for instance, humans and chimpanzees—could nevertheless exhibit striking differences.

Amazing how viruses can help create humans. We must be living in the right universe. The tale continues:

Scientists have long wondered how a master regulator such as p53 gained the ability to turn on and off a broad range of other genes related to cell division, DNA repair, and programmed cell death. How did p53 build its complex and powerful empire, so to speak?

Using the tools of computational genomics, the UCSC team gathered compelling evidence that retroviruses helped out. ERVs jumped into new positions throughout the human genome and spread numerous copies of repetitive DNA sequences that allowed p53 to regulate many other genes, the team contends.

Compelling evidence that viruses allowed p53 to regulate many other genes? Of course there is no such compelling evidence. The findings revealed that p53 binding sites sometimes fall within the ancient virus sequences. But for the evolutionary faithful this has profound, if idiotic, implications.

"This would have provided a mechanism to quickly establish a gene regulatory network in a very short evolutionary time frame," said Ting Wang, a post-doctoral researcher at UCSC and lead author of the paper.

Thus, p53 was crowned "guardian of the genome," as biologists now call it. …

Moreover, the team has proposed a new mechanism for evolutionary change. Conventional wisdom says that evolution is driven by small changes--point mutations--to the genetic code. If a change is beneficial, the mutation is passed onto future generations.

Now it appears that another level of evolution occurs that is not driven by point mutations. Instead, retroviruses insert DNA sequences and rearrange the genome, which leads to changes in gene regulation and expression. If such a change in gene regulation is beneficial, it is passed onto future generations.

You cannot make this stuff up. Retroviruses insert DNA sequences and bingo, new amazing designs rapidly appear. It all happens automagically. Junk religion breeds junk science.